I’ve had a couple of people ask, so here’s my latest Rian’s Super Duper Sourdough Recipe:

• 1 c. San Francisco sourdough barm (I keep mine pretty wet, adjust accordingly)
• 1 c. whole wheat flour (I use Bob’s Red Mill)
• 1.5 c. AP flour (I use Bob’s or King Arthur) I actually prefer AP to bread flour for a less glutenous crumb after the long fermentation for flavor.
• 1 tsp. salt
• ~1.5 c. water (more or less according to how wet your barm is)

1. Mix up everything into a relatively wet sloppy mess. Since good hydration is the name of the game here, I always verge on too wet. It’s not batter, but it’s wet enough that I can fold it a few times with a rubber spatula. Get it pretty well mixed up, but don’t worry about getting every last bit incorporated, the fermentation will take care of most of that.
2. Ferment (i.e., let sit) for at least 12 hours– 18 is better. It will have risen into a really soft bowl of goo.
3. At this point, I like to turn it out onto a VERY well floured board and do a little (very little, like 2-3 minutes) kneading/folding– using a bench scraper since it’s usually pretty sticky. I knead a little flour in if necessary to stiffen it up a bit, but mostly, I just want to even out the crumb and redistribute the products of the fermentation.
4. I like to form the dough into a “boule” at this point. If I got the water right, I can pull the dough from the top under the bottom a couple of times– sort of pushing a ball up the middle– and get the boule tight enough to keep some structural integrity.
5. Put the dough into a piece of parchment paper lining a bowl with a shape a bit larger than your resulting boule. You’re going to bake the bread right in this paper. This is when I slit a criss-cross in the top to help with oven spring. If you wait until it’s proofed, it’ll be too soft. You can wait an hour to go to step 6, but I usually just plow ahead.
6. Turn on the oven to 450F and stick a Dutch oven in there with the lid on.
7. About a half hour to 45 minutes later, your dough should have risen a bit (not necessarily doubled) and the oven and pot should be good and hot. VERY carefully remove the Dutch oven and remove the lid. Do this slowly and methodically. It’s very, very easy to burn yourself. Seriously.
8. Pick up the dough by the corners of the parchment and lower the whole thing into the Dutch oven. Mist it with some water, and put the lid back on. CAREFULLY.
9. Every 5 minutes or so, I lift the lid and mist some more water in the Dutch oven. Do that 3-4 times.
10. After 20 minutes or so, remove the lid and let the bread continue to brown for another 20-30 minutes.
11. Super duper extra carefully remove the Dutch oven and dump the bread out on a rack. Check the temp and make sure it’s 195F or so in the middle. If not, put the loaf back in the oven for a while. You don’t need the Dutch oven anymore.
12. This part is hard. Let it cool. Really. I know it smells good. I know you want to know how it turned out. Let it cool for at least a half hour. An hour or two would be better. There’s all kinds of good bread stuff happening in there still. If you cut it right away, it’ll be hard to slice, taste gummy, and just be a bad scene in general.
13. Slice and smear copious amounts of butter on it and try not to eat the whole loaf.

I’ve also used an egg wash on the loaf. If you like a really brown loaf, that’ll do it. Just beat up and egg and paint it on after you’ve formed the boule. I’m used to, and prefer, the way it looks without (paler brown with more variation across the surface) and so I don’t do that anymore.

Good luck. Let me know how it goes.